Crack is the fundamental concept of the brand. It means destruction: cracking something useless and giving it new life.
Where Simon stands today is what his grandfather visualised regarding throwing away things. All the season collections are personalised from Simon’s family and childhood memories both good and bad.
His lifestyle and growing up as a child has influenced his work of art in a lot of ways to construct the framework of each collection. Therapeutic vision and feeling liberated is Simon’s way through every new concept in his collection. Being a very gentle person its through his art and creative work how Simon shows his reaction to the world about the things that upsets him like discrimination in any genre.
HOW DO YOU CONCEPTUALISE YOUR BRAND, WHAT IS THE CONCEPT BEHIND IT?
The idea of “Cracker”, which is “Simon Cracker”, so it is like “Simon the distractor”, starts from the early age of Simone when his grandfather told him to built things and destroy things to rebuild them in a different way. He started doing this since he was a child and producing objects than at one point he realised that he wanted to communicate with other people and to have other people involved in this process of “cracking”, of deconstruction and construction.
And so he started being interested in garments because garments are not just an object per se but it is something that requires the presence of a body, of another human being and so he decided to start experimenting with his idea of “destroying what already exists” and giving it a new life through a creative process with is the one that consists in deconstruction first and then construction. Especially since three years when he started really focusing only on upcycling that works in a very good way. It means that everything that the brand produces is up cycled so the garments are one of a kind, trying to keep the prices affordable and without any waste. So the idea of “Cracker” is the idea also of destroying a certain mentality in fashion.
IS ALL YOUR COLLECTION COME FROM THE IDEA OF RECYCLING AND REUSE OR THERE ARE OTHER INSPIRATIONS, IDEAS?
Simone used to do also to have some fabrics done and printed for him but one of the main focus of the collection has always been the one of living new life to preexisting things. Since like more or less three years, he decided to focus just on he upcycling process: nothing is thrown away. Garments are built in a kind of three dimensional way so with no drawings because drawings in fashion are a little bit cheating and working in three dimensions being also guided by the garments and fabrics that he found at stocks or leftovers or things that have been forgotten in laundries, I mean these are our sources of material and of course trying to give themes to each collection. So maybe one collection is more focused in vintage tailoring, so also the research of materials goes in a certain direction: it can be more sporty or more classical.
HOW DOES YOUR PERSONAL MEMORIES AND YOUR FAMILY EVENTS GUIDED YOU TO CREATE YOUR COLLECTION?
As I told you, from the very beginning Simone was very much influenced by the approach of his grandfather who told him how to consider the objects from another point of view. So sometimes an object is not exactly what it is seemed but it can take many different outputs by destroying and rebuilt it with different meanings.
In Simone’s work there are a lot of family memories, they are very present in Simone’s work and also the place where he lives, Emilia-Romagna, Italy, which is one of the areas in Italy that is very famous for good food and a very genuine and nice approach to things and all of this has became part of the language of Simone, for example all ladies knitting, all of this has became part of the language of Simon Cracker collection and the his identity.
IN YOU COLLECTION DO YOU USE SUSTAINABLE FABRICS?
So far everything that we do and we produce as Simon Cracker is up cycled so we are not buying new fabrics.
SO IT IS MORE INTO RECYCLING AND USE SUSTAINABLE WAYS TO CREATE GARMENTS...
Yes, I mean the all collection is done by hand basically, by Simone himself with the help of seamstresses and also we have like kind of a dictionary of words that define the work of Simon Cracker and one of them is “end of the day”. So even if Simone’s work produces a waste, it is reused to create other garments.
WHAT IS THE PROCESS BEHIND CROCHET ACCESSORIES, HOW DO YOU CREATE THEM? DO YOU KNIT THEM OR DO YOU BUY THEM?
Both of the things. Considering the fact that we have a lot of people that collect all the garments, like table clothes and laces or curtains and stuff like that, crochet garments are all handmade by women who knit and sometimes like the laces come from already existed garments. So we deconstruct and we use just one part: from a cover of a table we transform it in a part of a dress so nothing is produced or made especially for the collection, so the concept is always “use what you find” basically.
COULD YOU PLEASE EXPLAIN US HOW YOU CREATE ACCESSORIES LIKE EARRINGS?
So yes, this is also related to the experimental part of the work of Simon Cracker meaning that it is always a matter of finding new solutions for the fabrics, the idea of using silicon in order to encapsulate jewels and making them like drippings. So we consider both the creative input, like the accessories line, for example the wooden jewels, so there is always a connection with the main frame of the collection and the other part is related to experiment with unconventional materials in order to create something that has the same DNA of clothes but with different output in which nature is something we have to take in consideration as the DNA of the brand. Actually we love nature.
YES, IT IS CORRELATED TO YOUR BRAND IDENTITY BECAUSE EVEN NATURE HAS THE POWER TO DESTRUCT AND CREATE AGAIN.
Yes, this is exactly the same process which it is also related to the idea of beauty of imperfect things, the beauty of things that change with the passing of time and take another values and the “beauty of the broken”: instead of hiding something, you show it.
DO YOU WANT TO TALK ABOUT ANY FUTURE COLLECTION AND GIVE US SOME HINT ABOUT?
We have been invited to AltaRoma to present our next collection in Rome, so we will create our show with thirty outfits and (not to spoil anything), it is a reflection and a representation of thoughts that Simone started having on femininity that is quite a big topic today. Simone has always been… let’s say genderless because garments are for everyone. In the collection that we present in February, it will be a strong component of femininity but seen through the eyes and the DNA of the brand so it won’t be like a stereotyped idea either sexiness or femininity.
It will be related to creative process and it will be focused on the theme because we made a lot of researches and we talked a lot about this topic. So this collection was born as it was a reflection on femininity. Then we are working on another big project, but I can't spoil you anything at the moment, anyway it is something related to the creation of a community of like minded people: instead of thinking about the target (sex, economical power), is like mindless that is the most important thing for us.
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For DareClan
Images provided by Simon Cracker